1. Technical Field
The invention relates to an apparatus for archiving a plurality of specimens contained in specimen vessels, particularly medical and/or biological specimens. The invention further relates to a method for removing a selected specimen vessel containing a specimen, particularly a medical and/or biological specimen, from an archive room.
2. Background Information
It is known in the art that, following completion of a specimen analysis, for example a medical specimen in a medical analysis laboratory, said specimen must be stored for a certain period of time, while clearly maintaining an identification and allocation of the specimen to a specimen origin, for purposes of documentation and conducting, for example, control analyses or further specimen testing. Correspondingly, in the context of ordering medical laboratory tests, it is not rare for physicians to initially order only limited testing of medical specimens, for example of blood samples, when giving the order to an analysis lab. Depending on the outcome of the initial analysis, the ordering physician may require further testing of the specimen to include additional analysis parameters. Analysis orders of this kind that are structured in two stages are intended to reduce the costs generated by the ordering physician, which are ultimately charged to the patient.
In medical analysis laboratories, but not only there, with increased frequency, there arise therefore situations when respective specimens must not only be archived but also removed again from the archive. In view of the enormously high throughputs in, for example, medical analysis labs and the need to automate a great proportion of the analysis work, not least of all due to the low compensation levels per analysis, there exists a demand for providing an archive system with a compact design that is still able to receive a plurality of specimens and allows, in addition, for the fast and targeted removal of individual specimens for follow-up processing.
The specimens therein, particularly medical and/or biological specimens, are typically stored in specimen vessels, which are often tubes or so-called vials.
Specimen archives like this used for archiving large numbers of such specimen vessels and specimens contained therein have, accordingly, tray-type sample carriers with an arrangement that accommodates a plurality of receptacles for receiving individual specimen vessels, particularly such tubes and/or vials. These tray-type sample carriers are then arranged inside the archive room, taking advantage of the spatial width and depth therein, as well as the height of the room.
An example of an archive and/or storage system of this type is disclosed in US 2007/0172396 A1. There, the inside of an archive room is accessible via a lock for infeeding and/or outfeeding specimens or specimen vessels loaded with specimens, respectively, to tray-type sample holders provided with specimen vessels. An elevator and/or carousel system with two continuously circulating vertical rows configured in the manner of a rotary elevator is contained in the archive room that includes a plurality of receptacle drawers suspended on a correspondingly continuously circulating drive train. Due to being disposed in an articulated manner on the drive system, the receptacle drawers are able to travel around turn-around points in a top and a bottom section of the “rotary elevator” such that the floor of the compartments always points downward. The corresponding specimens that must be stored are placed into these compartments. If a sample is to be deposited, the continuous drive is moved until such a time that a vacant compartment comes to be located across from the lock such that a specimen vessel and/or specimen holder with a plurality of specimen vessels can be placed therein after passing the lock. If a certain specimen is to be removed from the archive system, the compartment housing a specimen holder that contains the specimen is moved in front of the lock, by operating the drive system and the compartments suspended thereon, and the specimen holder is removed and extracted.
Disadvantageously, this system requires a large three-dimensional space for embodying the continuous drive system, particularly in the top and bottom sections of the archive room at the turn-around points; this volume is not available for specimen storage. In other words, the ratio of the number of possible specimens that can be stored and the necessary volume of the receptacle space is comparatively unfavorable, whereby the storage density of the specimens is correspondingly low. This means, in a limited space, it is only possible to store a small number or specimens, or a larger storage space must be provided for depositing a certain number of specimens, associated with additional expenditure. Particularly if a refrigerated storage of specimens is compulsory, as is required for various medical or biological specimens, such an unfavorable volume ratio also results in higher operating costs, as a comparatively small number of stored specimens requires the cooling of a comparatively large three-dimensional space.
In addition, outfeeding times are comparatively long for specimens if it is necessary to remove two specimens in sequence from a comparatively fully stocked archive that are located on different compartment levels. For example, if a comparatively large specimen sample carrier must be removed from a first storage space in a first compartment, the system is not able to advance the drive for moving the compartments already at that time and restack the compartments for the removal of a further, smaller sample carrier from another compartment, if only a smaller sample carrier must be removed from the further compartment. At any rate, after handling the first sample carrier from which a specimen is removed, said sample carrier cannot easily be returned into the archive; rather, it is necessary to move that compartment back to face the lock that offers a receiving space for the sample carrier. Especially, the dwelling time of specimens requiring refrigeration is thus prolonged inside the lock, which is typically not refrigerated, and can result in excessive heating of the further specimens located on the sample carrier, possibly damaging them.
A second embodiment of this specification discloses an alternative system that is particularly intended for storing specimens requiring deep-freezing. Provided inside a freezer-type archive room, there is a rack system of compartments or drawers rigidly arranged one top of each other, thus allowing only for a horizontal removal of a sample carrier. Toward one side, the archive room is closed off by vertically moveable insulating elements. On this side, outside of the actual archive room that is delimited by the insulating elements, there is provided an extraction manipulator that is movable in the vertical direction for targeting a position that is located higher or lower and upon which a sample carrier, which is to be extracted, is disposed. Said manipulator includes, furthermore, a lifting mechanism, which is brought to engage with the insulation elements via corresponding tabs, and is able to move this insulation element as well as any insulation elements resting thereupon in the vertical direction to create an opening inside the insulating wall composed of the insulating elements. A corresponding sample carrier is then removed from the rack system through this opening.
Although this solution allows for compact storage of the samples in the actual archive room, a large-dimensioned lock however, requires a corresponding amount of construction space in the vertical direction, because it is necessary to dispose a height-adjustable extraction system. Therefore, this solution also results in an unfavorable ratio of available space versus usage of space, accompanied by the associated excess costs.
A further archive system, operating in the manner of a rotary elevator, is disclosed in WO 2009/077465 A1. This system suffers from the same disadvantages as the system that was disclosed as the first embodiment in US 2007/0172396 A1.
A further possibility for archiving and storing specimens is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,214,023 B2. The specimen archive shown therein is constructed in the manner of a high-rise rack storage system based on known logistics applications. It has a plurality of rack storage areas, disposed adjacent relative to each other and vertically on top of each other, where the corresponding sample carriers, complete with specimen vessels, are placed. An extraction system is able to move between the rack storage areas both vertically as well as horizontally, whereby individual sample carriers are extracted from the storage.
The above system also suffers from the disadvantage that a space must be reserved for trips executed by the extraction system, which, once again, cannot be used as storage space in the archive room, resulting only in an unfavorable utilization of the archive room relative to the number of the specimens to be stored therein. This causes a particularly unfavorable cost effect when the archive room must be refrigerated.